Kirchmeyer The Eimert Estate

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-3-6951-4684-0
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 508 Seiten

Herbert Eimert (1887-1972) was the founder of the world's first studio for electronic music, director of the Cologne radio program 'Musikalisches Nachtprogramm', with which a new musical aesthetic direction was developed for the first time in music history by a radio station, editor of the publication series 'die Reihe', author of fundamental books on twelve-tone and serial technique and gave impetus to the Webern renaissance. Using over 400 annotated original documents (Eimert's correspondence, which he bequeathed to the author in his will), the history of the origins and development of electronic and serial music as well as the Webern renaissance is critically presented from Eimert's perspective. The edition contains an original biographical preface and an appendix consisting of letters and documents. The original German edition is available at ISBN 9783756257690) or ISBN 9783756802951. Helmut Kirchmeyer, born in Düsseldorf in 1930. Studied musicology, German studies, philosophy and sociology in Cologne as well as law, criminology, psychology and church history in Cologne and Bonn. Studied music in Düsseldorf and Cologne (piano, composition, instrumentation). 1954 Doctorate at the University of Cologne, 1982 Habilitation in Music and Media Studies at the University of Düsseldorf. 1960-1982 worked at the Technical University of Aachen (musicology). 1961-1995 taught at the later Cologne University of Applied Sciences for Documentation. Since 1972 head of the Robert Schumann Conservatory, Robert Schumann Institute, Robert Schumann University Düsseldorf as director, dean, rector. Retired in 1995. Kirchmeyer is a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Translated from the German by Annekatrin Krätschmer-Grafton. Mrs. Grafton grew up in East Germany and studied Musicology at the Martin-Luther-University in Halle/Salle. She began her career as a Music Dramaturg at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar. After the fall of the Berlin wall she moved to England to join her future husband, and together the family settled in Wales with their three young children. There she completed a post graduate degree in education and worked as a German teacher at Ysgol Dewi Sant in St. Davids. Today she lives in Warwickshire and works as a German tutor and translator. In her free time she enjoys walking, gardening and singing.

Helmut Kirchmeyer, born in Düsseldorf in 1930. Studied musicology, German studies, philosophy and sociology in Cologne as well as law, criminology, psychology and church history in Cologne and Bonn. Studied music in Düsseldorf and Cologne (piano, composition, instrumentation). 1954 Doctorate at the University of Cologne, 1982 Habilitation in Music and Media Studies at the University of Düsseldorf. 1960-1982 worked at the Technical University of Aachen (musicology). 1961-1995 taught at the later Cologne University of Applied Sciences for Documentation. Since 1972 head of the Robert Schumann Conservatory, Robert Schumann Institute, Robert Schumann University Düsseldorf as director, dean, rector. Retired in 1995. Kirchmeyer is a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kirchmeyer, Helmut

Leseproben

Preface

1. The Last Will

Herbert Eimert died on December 22, 1972 in Düsseldorf. He left a will that, among other things, stipulated that all biographical documents be handed over to me after his death. I knew nothing of the existence of such a will; my work sessions with him had not even begun. It was Dr. Marion Rothärmel who told me about the testamentary disposition concerning me after Eimert's death on the day of his funeral, but at first I did not attach any importance to it. It was only after Mrs. Eimert's death (October 16, 1974) that the will was opened (October 31, 1974). A short time later, I received the official notification.

2. The estate

The biographical estate handed over to me consists of 407 letters and postcards written between 1944 and 1972, as well as 22 pictures, mostly in glossy print format, to which I hold the copyright. For this reason, I have not included them. Furthermore, the estate contains no printed music or music manuscripts, no sketches, neither of compositions nor of essays, no scientific works, unpublished works or even attempts at preparatory work, nor any reviews or reports by or about Eimert. This estate has certainly been pre-screened. The discovery that Eimert, for example, wrote only a single biographically important letter in 1958 and received three is implausible. Even if one assumes that Eimert wrote and received most of the letters after 1944 (personal documents prior to that date fell victim to the bombing campaign) and these were no longer in his possession, the number of 407 letters as correspondence, including replies, over a period of just over 25 years is very low and corresponds to an unlikely output of only 16 letters per year. I assume that all sensitive and personal information was removed. Since Eimert used the back pages of broadcasting schedules or notes as carbon copies, officials such as Mr. Plum or Ms. Gail are included in the posthumous honors.

3. Annotated edition

The matter was embarrassing to me for a number of reasons. Composing a biographical essay on Eimert, which might be 20 or 30 pages long and is relatively easy to accomplish, and a biographically supported annotated edition of letters, which is certainly expected and cannot be limited to a catalog- style publication, are two separate things. In the middle of my Wagner and Strawinsky studies in the 1970s, I saw no room for this work for decades to come. Besides, I had no great desire to relive the often unpleasant daily confrontations in the Rhineland of the 1950s and 1960s and to conduct my own research into sources; because with the material that I had been given, the work could not be done. I therefore hesitated for over 20 years before publishing my 'Kleine Monographie über Herbert Eimert' (A Short Monograph on Herbert Eimert) in 1998 on behalf of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. It emerged from a lecture to the plenary assembly of the Academy's Philological-Historical Class and grew to 50 pages for the print run due to the necessary annotations. Today it is outdated because some of its conclusions were included verbatim in the present publication. The same applies in part to my accompanying text to the spoken-word recording 'Herbert Eimert', which I included in my Wergo series.

I wrote the new work with interest and love, but not with joy; the subject matter, when one recalls the individual unpleasant episodes, is too burdensome for that. There is something troubling about people like Eimert, who can deny themselves for the sake of the cause, when one steps into their shoes and retraces their hopes and defeats. I was obliged, to reverse a word of Gottfried Keller, to describe a procession in which I had participated for many years. I had to combine the required objectivity for the sake of historical truth with the now secondary and far less important need of presenting my own experiences from my perspective, even if this resulted in some disadvantages for me. The fact that he trusted me, of all people, to write his biography still fills me with trepidation today.

4. Encounters with Eimert

I came to Cologne to study in the summer of 1950 and received my doctorate in the summer of 1954 with a thesis on Strawinsky's compositional technique. The topic of my dissertation angered the majority of leading musicologists and opened the editorial offices of newspapers and radio stations to me. In the winter of 1955, to my own surprise, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, the successor to the former Kölnische Zeitung, hired me specifically because of my dissertation. On the recommendation of library councilor Prof. Dr. Willi Kahl, I got a job in Cologne as a newspaper critic, focussing on new music, chamber music and church music, and so I sat in a row next to Eimert from that time on. “In a row” is to be understood metaphorically; because if the seats were not occupied, Eimert chose the front rows, I the back. Eimert didn't need to catch one of the last trains to Düsseldorf. He paid no further attention to me, quite the opposite! Dr. Seidler, then head of the chamber music department at Cologne Radio, where I worked as a program designer, had tried to set up his own news magazine and had thus become a thorn in Eimert's side. He nipped this attempt in the bud. All those involved, including myself, lost this part of our modest livelihoods. Until October 1958, my dealings with Eimert were limited to a nod of the head during joint concert visits as professionals; and since we both worked in music journalism (Eimert wrote for the 'Kölnische Rundschau'), we saw each other in this uncomplicated way several times a month for over three years.

The relationship, which back then could not be called as such, not even in the journalistic-collegial sense, changed with the publication of my Strawinsky book in August 1958. At the end of an evening of string quartets in the lecture hall of the former Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Eimert suddenly approached me, tapped me briefly on the shoulder as he passed and summoned me to his office the next day. There he paid me compliments until I blushed, and he not only wrote a review in the Bonner Anzeiger, a subsidiary of the Kölnische Rundschau (which was remarkable because it is an unwritten editorial rule never to draw attention to the competition), but he also brought me into his inner circle of the 'Musical Night Program'. Nevertheless, I kept a somewhat shy distance from Eimert, and it was only after his retirement that a closer personal relationship developed. The suggestion to write his biography came from me, not from him, after I had, however, previously published several smaller reports about him at his request, in connection with special occasions. In the first half of 1970, we therefore saw each other at irregular intervals at his bungalow in Cologne-Widdersdorf. Nevertheless, we lost sight of each other after May 1972. In the spring of 1972, I had become director of the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Düsseldorf, which was soon to be established as a music academy (Musikhochschule), and at the time I had so much to deal with myself that there was no time for anything else. So I never saw Eimert again and felt guilty about it.

I also did not know about his serious illness. Eimert was shy, and I myself was also very reserved in my dealings with friends. Nevertheless, I was very familiar with the St. Martinus Hospital in Düsseldorf-Bilk, where Eimert was staying. It was here that I met my future wife, Dr. med. Eva Maria Berke, in 1965. She had looked after my sick mother as a ward physician in the internal medicine department. To make matters worse, I also passed the Martinus Hospital every day on my way to and from the conservatory in Neuss.

Then Frau Eimert died, and I hadn't seen her since the funeral either. There was a reading of the will in my absence, and an unknown lawyer from Cologne called Creutz urged me, together with Dr. Rothärmel, to accept the inheritance, which I then did.

5. The working method

The special working sessions between Eimert and me took place from March 18, 1970. We usually met every other Sunday after lunch without time constraints in his Widdersdorf Bungalow in a relaxed, almost cheerful atmosphere and talked to each other. I typed my handwritten notes by the next meeting and asked Eimert to correct the facts; as agreed, Eimert had no input into the evaluations. I didn't even show them to him. This procedure has also proven very useful for me in dealing with other artists, such as Stockhausen.

Unlike Wörner when writing his biography of Stockhausen, I did not work with recording equipment. Eimert only spoke about himself in response to specific questions, and his inclination towards talking about himself was limited. A request to speak necessary biographical background knowledge, personal assessments and intimate experiences onto tape for the sake of simplicity would have completely dried up the already faltering flow of speech. The man who was so shy that he didn't even go to a shoe store when he needed shoes, but instead had his wife send a selection home to choose from, had to be treated very carefully if one didn't want to run the risk of silencing him. The disadvantages are obvious. Handwritten notes and remarks are no easier to read after 25 or 50 years. Today, I can no longer do anything with many of my notes because I no longer know the context for sure. However, I did note critical things in small case block letters at the time. Nevertheless, a number of connections are unclear to me, especially where later biographical work has revealed the need for further inquiries that are no longer possible, especially not for problems that only arise...